Best and brightest? Worst and dimmist? Treadworn?

It is published as a cartoon. Is it more a sad commentary? A denunciation? J'accuse in a thousand-word surrogate? Try this for apt wording:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

But wait. There's more.